The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 — NAGPRA — established a federal legal framework for the repatriation of Native American human remains and cultural items from institutions receiving federal funding.

The passage of NAGPRA reflected a broader reckoning with the history of American institutions’ treatment of Indigenous remains: the Army Medical Museum collections, the museum collections across the country, the university anthropology departments that had accumulated skeletal material without consent.

For the Crazy Horse burial mystery, NAGPRA is relevant in a specific way: if his burial site were found and his remains were disturbed, NAGPRA would govern the legal framework for their treatment.

His remains would be subject to repatriation to the most closely affiliated tribal community — in this case, the Oglala Lakota, whose tribal government is at Pine Ridge.